Weapon Country
by chaoticlivi
Summary: SoulxMaka Week 2016. AU: There exists a universe in which there are demon weapons, but the guiding light of the Death Weapon Meister Academy does not glow, leaving humanity with all its prejudices and the weapons to navigate the world without a united front.
1. Day 1: Types of Kisses

**Day 1: Types of Kisses**

 **/**

The weapon man put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently backward enough to look into her face. Damn her impetuous heart. Maka had the urge to turn and run, but that would only make things worse.

"Did you - did you just kiss me?" Soul asked, head tilted, voice rough enough to make her bones ache.

She had, in fact. After such a comforting hug, it had been instinct to plant a kiss just above the collar of his shirt. His skin was warm. There had been no thought process before it, but it was definitely not meant to be a chaste kiss.

"No! Well, I - _yes,_ " Maka spluttered. "But," she added as his mouth dropped open, "I didn't mean it like that. It was just friendly."

Something changed along the corners of his mouth; what it meant, she couldn't tell. It was soon replaced with a familiar smirk, the sign of a serious discussion postponed. "Whatever you say, human. You make life so hard for yourself, you know?"

Maka pouted and rolled her eyes, the bright evening sun flashing in her peripheral vision. "Whatever. Back in your scythe form - let's try one more time before I go."

"Yes, my meister," he simpered with a shit-eating grin, rematerializing in her hands as a huge weapon, a red-and-black blade on a silver shaft.

"Ugh, creep, don't say that again," she muttered, only partly serious.

After standing there and thinking very hard for ten minutes, they still couldn't resonate. Maka plopped down on the grass and Soul crackled back into his usual shape, looking her over with something like concern.

"Maybe it doesn't even exist," she said, staring at a leaf. "All the books seem to indicate that it's real, but maybe it's something else. Maybe not everyone can do it..." Her mind went back to the dark place it had been before: maybe it was her fault; maybe Maka just couldn't connect properly with another person; maybe she couldn't understand what she'd read; maybe she just wasn't good enough for soul resonance. Maybe she was wasting his time. But after Soul had shared a rare embrace with her to try and reassure her, and after she'd gone and made _that_ awkward too, the least she could do was not start that shit again.

Soul shrugged. "Can't rush these things, I guess. Don't your books say it's really hard?"

Maka grinned, wry despite her mood. "They're everyone's books."

On the half-hour walk back to her own home, Maka made her way through the border checkpoint, waving at the guards - human and weapon alike - who had become accustomed to her frequent passage. Considering that she was a human, travel for her was easy. Poor Soul would have to deal with a lot more if he wanted to come visit her, so she always went to him.

Perhaps choosing an isolated, private little meadow to practice wielding her weapon-friend and experimenting with the mysterious soul-connecting technique had been a bad way to avoid falling in love with him.

Humans and weapons were not to be romantically involved. The ideal for most people seemed to be that relations between the two races would be cordial, perhaps friendly, without intermixing.

It hadn't been Maka's intentional plan. She just lived near weapon country, and despite feeling some trepidation about being in weapon-heavy territory, she sometimes liked to cross the border and explore, observing the differences between life there and life in what she thought of as "the outside world." There were many similarities, of course, but there was much heavier security in weapon country. It was definitely a less-wealthy place, with smaller homes crammed closer together and dingier alleyways. If she had to generalize the mood there, she would say the weapons were a polite but reserved people, for understandable reasons - they were widely misunderstood by the rest of the world. At first, everyone knew Maka was not a local and would give her strange looks; most seemed at least comfortable with her presence by now, and she had even made some friends.

Maka met Soul as he frequented the same local cafe she did and constantly sat in the corner scribbling musical notations. From his odd features and his presence there, she had to assume he was a weapon rather than a human traveler, but found herself more fascinated than frightened.

She worked up the courage to reach out and found a harmless, lonely person not entirely comfortable in his own skin, someone itching for a different kind of friendship. He had been born in the outside world, which was not terribly uncommon, and stumbled through learning how to control and inhibit his transformations with a rather strict tutor his parents hired. The instant he was qualified to study music at a school in weapon country, Soul had moved here.

In her free time, Maka found herself more and more interested by books about weapons. Information was always spotty, but they had existed for hundreds of years by now, so she did find significant reading material - including mention of a mysterious ability called "soul resonance." Apparently it was not uncommon for magic users of different disciplines to use it for various purposes, but some older texts mentioned that it was at its most powerful in a partnership between a weapon and a human.

Her desire to try it with Soul was irresistible, and in him, she found a willing partner. Their work together had not yet culminated in a successful resonance, but it had let her get to know him at his most gentle and encouraging.

Kissing his chest that day had come so naturally that it was frightening, and she hoped the transgression wouldn't scare him away from their friendship.


	2. Day 2: Can't Sleep

**Day 2: Can't Sleep**

 **I've forgotten to credit the lovely makapedia with reading over this story for me! Thank you, makapedia!**

 **/**

She was such a shitty liar, much too straightforward to be fibbing like that. " _You really mean you think she's 'genuine'_ ," added a part of him he'd always denied until she came along. He flipped his pillow to the cool side and sighed into it.

Soul would rarely assume that anyone had romantic feelings for him. He'd learned, over the course of his twenty years on the planet, that such a thing was possible, but never with anyone who seemed to actually know him.

Now, though, he'd spent nine months knowing Maka, and a third of that time trying to figure out how to resonate. There was a spark between them that just wasn't supposed to be there. He kept trying to squander it, because that would be bad bad bad bad bad, and he wondered if that meant he was squandering the resonance, too. Maka had often compared it to the idea of a spark.

He'd had a sense for a while now that she was also holding back.

Soul opened his eyes and stared into the darkness of his one-room apartment, as if it would help him think better. The stack of magazines on his bedside table, some containing articles and opinion pieces, reminded him that a weapon being close friends with a human was widely considered 'odd,' and a weapon in love with a human would be considered _wrong_ by many.

He didn't see himself as a monster. He felt like a normal- well, like humans felt, probably. But there were blades in his DNA. A very essential part of his being involved turning in part or in whole into a massive scythe. He could, if he wanted, rip any non-weapon to pieces in a few moments, and people (mostly humans) were afraid.

He couldn't blame them. Some of his kind did terrible things. Some of his kind were real monsters. There was a reason the rest of the world pushed most of the weapons into their own territories, a small group of countries that got on with everyone else by virtue of promising to control their own demons. It mostly worked. Of that much they could be proud.

Soul's thoughts returned, as if they were magnetized, to Maka. To her confidence in reaching out, to her earnest interest and desire to learn about weapons and _him_.

This was definitely love. Her lips had been soft and open against the skin at the base of his neck, and there was no possibility she "didn't mean it that way," the beautiful little liar.

Acting on his love for her could ruin both of their lives, especially hers. Oh, it wasn't illegal. They wouldn't be put to death or go to jail, but they could lose their lives all the same. Her employer, a public school, wouldn't want to be known as a sponsor of weapon-fuckers. At lot of his friends would feel he was consorting with the enemy. Her grandparents would freak out. How would her mother react? Soul was pretty sure she wouldn't disown her daughter, but surely she wouldn't be supportive. His own family, still up in their ivory tower away from the sticky issues of weaponhood, would be as anxious and phony about his controversial relationship as they were about him being a weapon in the first place (except, perhaps, for Gran and Wes, but he didn't want to create any conflict between them and the others).

Almost half of the general population was in favor of outlawing any weapon/human sexual contact.

When she'd come to him saying she wanted to try resonating because she'd read about it, he'd bought her idea that it would be interesting, an experiment, an accomplishment. But there was more to it: the promise of getting closer to Maka and her dreams.

Soul turned to his side, hugging a pillow - a poor substitute for the person he was thinking of, really.


	3. Day 3: Stuck in the Rain

**Day 3: Stuck in the Rain**

 **/**

During their next secret resonance meeting, it began to rain.

"Shit," Maka said when she could no longer ignore all the drops. Soul materialized out of weapon form beside her.

"I have an umbrella," he said, dashing to his backpack. "It's small, but it should keep us at least a little more dry. For a while. I can walk you back to the border."

"Good!" Maka beamed. "But also, let's wait and see if it goes away."

The rain lasted, steadily getting worse. Soul and Maka crowded under the umbrella and groused about the weather interfering with their plans.

This close to him, with no sensation but the cold wet outside and the heat of his body warming her from the right, Maka's world shrunk. It became nothing but his eyes, his heartbeat, his lips, only inches from hers. She wondered if he was thinking the same.

Of course he wasn't. That would be ludicrous. She was not the kind of prize that could be worth the ostracism he would face. All the same, so much thinking about it made Maka a little guilty, and she risked a glance at Soul.

Oh. That involved a lot more eye contact and a lot more _heat_ in his gaze than Maka was prepared for.

"What?" he said.

"I - nothing," she answered, licking her lips as she thought of what his kiss might be like. He noticed, and stared at her mouth in a fascinated way she'd never known him to stare at anything before, except possibly his favorite sheet music.

"I want- I'm just curious," she whispered, as if there were any concern of anyone else hearing over the roar of rain on the umbrella.

The spell broke. "Absolutely not," he said, abruptly pulling back - her heart sunk; she hadn't even noticed that he was leaning in.

"How can you possibly answer before you knew what I was gonna say?" Maka channeled all of her embarrassment into her scowl. At that, Soul hesitated.

"Okay, fine," he said at last. "What is it?"

Instead of giving voice to the real issue at hand - her truly absurd desire to kiss her weapon friend - Maka blurted, "My father was a weapon," at which Soul's eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

"You - he was? What happened to him? I thought your parents got...?"

"Divorced?" Maka finished. "Well, like I told you, they did break up. And it was mostly because he's a cheater. But there's another reason. When Mama finally had enough of his games, she chased him off entirely because," and she tried to soften her voice as much as she possibly could, as though she were softening a hit to his face, "she thought my life would be harder with a weapon for a father."

"Oh." Soul blinked, mouth hanging open a little. "Um. That sounds rough."

Maka felt the rain on her arm and noticed that he had drawn further away.

"Soul, that _wasn't_ what was wrong with him," she said. Damage control. "He was a cheater. I think Mama used him being a weapon as an excuse. So he wouldn't make a fuss over getting custody of me. They weren't legally married."

He allowed the rain to patter on the umbrella for a few moments. "Do you - can you blame her?" Soul asked, studying the grass with a frown.

What kind of question was that? Was it rhetorical? Was he implying that she would do the same to him someday?

"You're a million times better than my father," she muttered, despairing in her ability to save the situation. Soul's brow furrowed even more at this.

"What?" He looked at her directly. "But we're not...you know."

"Yeah, I know," Maka said in her tiniest voice. Her arm was soaked.

"Unless you're saying you see me as a father figure, in which case, I'm not sure where I went wrong," he added, in possibly the most depressing attempt at humor that Maka had ever heard.

"No!" she barked, causing him to jump visibly.

He regained his composure. "Well, that's good. So...what were you really curious about, then?"

"Ah, what? Oh, it was nothing," she said, biting her lip.

Maka tried to tell herself that she was imagining the weight between them, that there wasn't anything really wrong and that ignoring her own anxieties would lighten the moment. But nothing improved, and when she couldn't stand the tension anymore, she said, "I don't think the rain's gonna let up."

"No?"

"No. So I should just...go."

"Let me walk you," he offered again, but his voice faded into the rain as she took off. "Wait, what the hell, Maka?!"

"It's okay, don't worry about it!" she shouted back, waving nonchalantly. The rain wetting down her hair ruined the effect.

"You're an idiot," he called, jogging toward her, but she shook her head.

"It's not that far and I'll be fine."

"You'll get sick."

"Please go home! I don't want company," she called back, voice lighter than her words. When she stopped at the border, he was no longer following.


	4. Day 4: Ink

**Day 4: Ink**

 **/**

He was a coward. Despite the popularity of fax machines, he chose to use regular mail. He wouldn't know when she received it, and she wouldn't be able to respond immediately. Mail could be seen as more intimate, sure, but it also created some much-needed distance.

Soul sat next to a pile of discarded notes, all of them addressed to Maka, and each of them a failed attempt at finding out what went wrong.

None of the words were right. His desperation shone through too strongly in many of them, while others sounded too cold. The real problem, he suspected, was that he wasn't sure whether to reveal his true feelings - ending the friendship or ruining their lives or both - or try to mask them under "platonic" concern.

It had been days. It was high time to reconnect. And though he had wandered there out of sentiment, she had not met him at their usual practice place yesterday when she normally would.

Soul took a break to go downstairs and grab his own mail. It contained a letter from Maka.

He opened it right there at the mailbox, hands shaking.

 _Dear Soul,_

 _I owe you an explanation._

 _When I left the other day, I wasn't angry at you. I was just afraid that something might happen between us that wasn't supposed to, mostly because of me and my feelings. I left right away to try to keep that from happening, and because I thought it would be best for both of us if we didn't keep talking anymore. In fact, I think we probably shouldn't talk for a while._

 _I'm sorry if I was rude or mean at all. If you don't understand what was going on, please at least believe that I'm just trying to make it easier on you and avoid getting you in trouble._

 _Thanks for being such a good friend. Hope to see you around eventually! Please take care._

 _Maka_

Inspired - how dare she make decisions about _his_ life without asking first? - Soul ran upstairs for his pen and paper and furiously wrote back. His handwriting was chicken scratch, but there were more important things to worry about than presentation.

 _Maka,_

 _You made that decision alone? You don't have to protect me. We're adults. I can make my own decisions._

Remembering that he had done the same thing to her before - lying in bed contemplating her future, refusing her totally unsubtle advances despite wanting badly to accept them, clamming up the instant she wanted to discuss more serious matters, all because he was enforcing what he thought would be best for her - Soul relented a little in the composition of the rest of the letter.

 _You're probably right, though. Maybe it would be better if we never talked again. It would definitely be better for you, at least. But from now on, you make that decision for yourself, not for me._

 _Please take care, Maka._

Heart as heavy as the entire world, Soul dropped the letter in the mailbox. He abandoned all plans for the afternoon, collapsing into bed with his clothes on, and slept until his head ached and he didn't know what time it was.

On waking up, he left his apartment with the strange feeling that it might be worth a trip to the coffee shop in the dark. Maybe it was just because that was where they'd met. He suspected that he would spend some time drifting back and forth among places they had spent time, getting used to seeing them without her, because he'd definitely just put the kibosh on their friendship for now.

Was he selfless, or was he being an ass? Would it really be that bad to write her another letter or even go look for her? Probably, but he still wanted to do it.

"Hey, Soul," said a voice from the past - someone stood along the side of the coffee shop. When Soul looked up, he saw a familiar silhouette, one of the first people he'd met upon moving here. Masamune leaned against the wall with both arms crossed.

"Oh, hey," Soul answered, willing neither to ignore a former friend nor to get into a long conversation.

"How's it going?" asked the demon sword, pushing away from the wall and letting his arms dangle. "We haven't talked in a long time."

"No, it's been a while. What have you been up to?" Soul wanted this to end quickly so he could retreat into his corner with some kind of heavy caffeine dosage and spend a solitary night moping.

"Oh, you know, just the usual," Masamune answered, evasive as ever. Soul didn't really like his tone, and he couldn't see his expression that well by the streetlight, but there was something off about it. "But I did run into you pretty recently. I don't think you noticed me, though."

"Really," Soul said. "Sorry. I've been busy - must have missed you."

"Yeah, you did look busy. What's her name? Maka?"

Soul's blood froze. There was nothing particularly aggressive in Masamune's words, and yet... "That was probably her," he said. "She's weird. She likes to hang around here pretty often, so if you were here, you probably saw us getting coffee or something."

Masamune shook his head and grinned, his eyes glinting strangely by the streetlight. "Nope, not here. I saw you being _wielded_ by her."


	5. Day 5: Red String of Destiny

**Day 5: Red String of Destiny**

 **/**

It didn't usually take long for mail to get from Soul's town to Maka's, not when she lived so close to the border. She hadn't been expecting to receive a response, but there it was in her mailbox a few days after she'd sent her own. Something deeply selfish inside Maka was disappointed that he didn't immediately proclaim his love for her and demand that she come back to resolve their issues and start a revolution against society by kissing a lot.

That was a bit hypocritical, wasn't it? This would be better for him all along. Maka shoved his letter in a drawer. Though he was annoyed with her choice of words, clearly Soul agreed that she was right, so she had nothing to complain about. They would both be safe, living separate lives.

Days passed, each one a fruitless attempt at finding distractions. In a little over a week, even her focus at work was slipping. When a student pointed it out, Maka decided she had to wander back to their usual training ground, the small grassy clearing where they'd always been able to go to be alone.

This was not a day when they would usually meet; she doubted Soul would come here at all anymore, but he would certainly not be here at such an odd time, so she could safely assume she would not be found. She told herself it was for closure, but as she came across the place where they stood in the rain, that started to feel less and less possible.

Maka sat down and cried, not for the first time and - she feared - not for the last.

Some sixth sense told her someone was nearby, within a mile or so, as if there were a light shining just out of her field of vision. She couldn't bring herself to worry about someone who would probably never cross her path, until she actually heard footsteps. Maka panicked, standing abruptly and facing her unknown visitor despite her face, still red from crying and wet from the tears. If someone was going to yell at her for trespassing, she could at least explain herself, and-

It was Soul.

"Maka?!"

 _It was Soul_.

"Ah! Um...hi," she said, waving and making a valiant attempt at a grin. A single tear fell from her jawline.

He jogged to her side, eyes and voice full of concern. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she lied.

Soul fixed her with a level stare. "You're a horrible liar."

She tucked her hands behind her back and shrugged, afraid to meet his eyes. "I missed you. Was just trying to get...closure, I guess."

Though Maka wasn't looking at his face, she saw his head nod. "Me, too," he answered. At this, she looked up again.

"But I'd rather still be friends." She added, biting her lip and watching him for reactions.

"Obviously," he murmured, lifting his arms ever-so-subtly. She strode over and hugged him, this time breathing deeply instead of planting another kiss as she wanted to. He smelled like the usual assortment of deodorant and laundry detergent he usually used, but there was something else. He smelled like _bandages_.

"What's under your shirt?" she asked, suddenly aware of an angry red line of flesh that intersected with the dip of his collar. Soul glanced at it and winced, as if doing an displeased double-take.

"Ah! Um, it's - it's nothing, really. I just got a - a _scratch_ the other day, but it's healing. Nothing to worry about."

Something was not right. How do you get a 'scratch' there, anyway? She couldn't be sure, but as far as she knew, Soul didn't walk around shirtless too often, and even if he did, what would he, the delicate pianist, be doing that would cause a chest injury?

"Did you treat that properly?" Maka asked, skeptical.

"Yeah, obviously," Soul scoffed.

"Let me see," she demanded.

"No. It's perfectly fine, Maka, it's healing. It was bandaged for a couple days but now it's time to let it breathe. If you keep dwelling on it you're just gonna get all upset."

"It'll be better than just imagining. I'm not gonna forget about it, I'm just going to keep trying to figure out what it is, Soul. Tell me what's going on for once!"

He stared at her, waiting for her to give in, finally sighing when she refused to look away again. "Fine, whatever. But really, I'm okay! It's not serious."

He tugged the collar of his shirt down and she stood on her tiptoes, the better to see underneath.

An angry cut, long and thin like a taut red string, stretched from chest to shoulder, the flesh held together with neat stitches.


	6. Day 6: Feisty

**Day 6: Feisty**

 **/**

Maka gaped for a moment, eyes absurdly wide. "Soul!" she scolded. "That is not a _scratch_! Did someone do that to you?!"

"Um," he said, swallowing. Feisty, protective Maka wasn't going to take this especially well. He sat down without explanation, patting the grass beside him expectantly. She took a deep breath, then paused and chose to sit.

"Yeah," Soul said at last. "I got into a bit of a fight. But don't worry - it's fine. It's not serious."

"What _happened_?" Maka pried again, apparently unable to take her eyes off the spot where the cut disappeared under his shirt.

"You remember me telling you about the guy I used to hang out with here, right? When I first got here? He lived here all his life and showed me around. Masamune was his name."

Maka frowned. "He did that?!"

"...He's changed a lot, I guess. I barely even ever thought about him anymore. But I ran into him the other day, and uh, he was mad. So when I ignored him, he took a swing at me."

"With his weapon form," Maka finished for him.

"Yeah. With that."

" _ **WHY?!**_ " she burst out furiously, so loud that her voice echoed and Soul cringed. "What the hell?!"

He bit his lip. "A couple of things. I mean I think he was literally _going mad_ in the way that people do when they almost become kishin. I guess he must be vulnerable to it or something; he was always a bit aggressive, but since we stopped hanging out, he must have really lost it. But also...he saw us, I guess," he admitted. "The reason he was upset was because he asked me about you."

Maka just stared, luminous eyes begging for further explanation.

"He saw us, practicing together. Said he was around here one day and heard us talking. And I wouldn't answer his questions about us, but I wouldn't let him shit-talk you either, and that really bothered him. So he tried to stop me, and when I tried to walk by him, he slashed me."

The memory of the things Masamune said surged through Soul and filled him with stubborn affection for his practice partner all over again.

Maka seized Soul's wrist - he slipped his hand through to hold hers - and dragged him up to stand. "Where is he?!"

"Don't you start," Soul said, squeezing her hand to still her. "He's in jail now anyway. They won't let him go anywhere until his trial."

"Gods _damn_ it," Maka snarled. "What is people's problem?!" At Soul's questioning glance, she stomped her foot. "Why does he care what we are?"

"Because he thinks it should be weapons against the world or something," he sighed.

Maka growled. "I understand why so many weapons feel that way, I really do, it's just - _we're_ not their business, Soul!"

"Shhh, Maka," Soul said, holding a finger up to his lips, remembering that they had not always been as alone as they thought they were. "I know, I know. It sucks."

She fixed him with a fiery stare.

"What is it?" he asked. The passion in her expression made his hair stand on end. Time seemed to stop for a moment, and she rushed toward him again, embracing him - mercifully, she was more gentle this time, aware of the still-healing wound.

"I can't believe someone would do this to you," she said. "It makes me sick." Her tone was so intense, so angry, that he would have been a little scared, were she not on his side. He rubbed her back.

"I know, but it's the way things are," he muttered into her hair, which smelled sweet and felt soft. It was hard not to plant a kiss on her head. "I'm okay, though. Seriously."

She looked up then, capturing his attention with the corners of her lips twitching dangerously downward. "I tried to go away and you still got hurt," she said, the beginnings of tears glistening.

Soul shook his head, choosing not to tell her that their separation had been far worse than some childish attack by a disgruntled weapon. "You can't blame yourself for shit other people do to me, Maka."

"Why didn't you - I would have come and helped you," she said, sniffling. "What did you do? Were you alone with a huge wound?"

He had been, of course. The cut was not especially deep, so while it needed attention, he didn't feel the need to call his family or anything. After the police had quickly gotten Masamune under control, they had helped Soul to the local hospital, and he'd been given stitches and bandages. A few of his friends had shown interest in helping him out, for which he was thankful.

"I didn't want to hang around people anyway," he said. It was true. "But I had company. And also, his sister brought me enough soup for an army."

"Okay, I'm glad you had someone, but Soul, you could've - you could've told me, you know. I'd have _wanted_ to be there."

"Yeah, that's why I didn't stop anywhere to call you," he answered. Even now, the images conjured by that idea made him smirk. "I could see you charging into the hospital and getting into huge trouble."

Maka rolled her eyes, but let it go and chose to lean her head (gently, again) on Soul's chest, touching the fabric over his cut as if trying to sense something she couldn't quite believe. Her sadness melted him.

"It's not your fault," he reminded her. "I really, really wanted to play around with being wielded by you."

"But I'm the one who asked," she mumbled.

"And I'd do everything again. Including getting into a fight. Well, maybe not the running away part-" Maka whined something incoherent in response "-but everything else."

"Since your letter, there's something I've been thinking about asking you, but I don't want you to feel like you have to say yes," she told his shirt.

"Maka, I could argue with you all day. Stop worrying." When she made eye contact again, brows raised, he offered a grin that he hoped was reassuring, though he wished she would just spit it out already. If she was getting ready to give voice to his own thoughts of love, his heart was probably going to pound right out of his chest; if she wasn't, he wanted to get the disappointment over with.

"Yeah, that's true," she conceded, and took a deep breath. "Well, I really...care about you, Soul. And I can't stand the idea of seeing you get hurt because of me. But it seems like that's already happened and something in me wants to fight all this. I want to fight _together_."


	7. Day 7: Just Kiss Already

**Day 7: Just Kiss Already!**

 **/**

Soul pursed his lips. Maka's heart pounded and she mustered her courage. "Depends what you're thinking," he said.

"The thing I was curious about last time we were here...I was wondering what it would be like to kiss you." The world felt distant as she waited for his answer.

His voice was low, perhaps with caution, but it contained an encouraging lack of anger or disgust. "Do you think it would be different from kissing a human?"

"No," she admitted. "It's...more about you."

Soul nodded. "I see." He squeezed her hand, licked his lips in a movement that reminded her of her own that day in the rain. "You realize that most people would consider that wrong."

"Well then, most _people_ are wrong," Maka said, clenching her empty hand into a fist.

With a rueful grin, he pulled her closer, willing to ignore the ache of his wound. "Yeah, I know. But do you really want to risk everything over this? Me?"

"I believe everyone I care about will understand," she said. "Or at least, they'll stay for me. Mama will understand. My grandparents will be confused, but they won't disown me. I don't see Papa often, but he'll understand. My friends will understand. And my school…" She looked him straight in the eyes. "They don't have to know about it right away, but I believe even some of the people there will understand. And if they don't, they're not worth our time. I'll figure something else out. Besides," she added, "aren't you the one who said we should be making these decisions for ourselves, Soul?"

"I did-"

"Then _you_ decide if _I'm_ worth it. Your friends won't be too happy, probably. I'd understand if you didn't want to go any further."

He lifted his arms higher around her and thought of Masamune's words again. "If I know anyone else who would stop being my friend because of you, they're full of shit."

"Are you gonna be in danger of getting attacked all the time? I didn't think anyone would go _that_ far, but..." She trailed off. She didn't want to imply that weapons were naturally violent people, _knew_ they weren't, but what had happened to Soul was deeply alarming, the kind of thing she had only encountered in distant news stories before.

"I don't think so, but I also don't care that much." Soul shrugged. "Masamune was a weird case. I told you, he's going mad. People here will mostly be the same as where you are."

"You mean like they might kick you out of school, tell you you're a bad person committing crimes against nature, and cut off their relationships with you?" Maka asked.

"Only the assholes," Soul said. "I'm sure I'll get by. Seriously, Maka, stop worrying about me and worry about yourself."

She grinned and kissed his chest. This time, he did not push her back, only nudged her face upward to meet his. Soul wore a tiny smile, the tenderness in his eyes making her heart flutter. She paused on her way to his lips, overwhelmed by the cosmic fortune it must have taken to land her in this moment with him.

They kissed, tumbling gradually from a chaste exploration to an impassioned engagement of tongues and sighs. She had never kissed this way before and was fairly certain that he hadn't, either, but instinct carried them far and she was more than happy to learn the rest together.

Their bodies intertwined where they stood, and they finally lowered themselves to the grass, the easier for Maka to climb into Soul's lap. What had paralyzed her with emotion at first quickly became addictive as she lost her tolerance for any sort of restraint and wrapped herself around him. As their interactions heated up, Soul pulled back, grinning at the little whimper she let out, and put his forehead against hers.

"I think we'd better keep this in private," he said, voice practically a purr. "Wanna go back to my place?"

Maka had been to his apartment before, but they did not spend a lot of time there. It was only one room, after all, and there was little to do there. Little to do, that is, except for getting in bed together. Admittedly, she had wondered what it would be like to do this before, and as they sank onto the bed together, her heart felt at once light and infinitely full.

After a tremendous amount of kissing and touching, Maka finally stopped them again by putting a hand alongside Soul's face and looking into his eyes. "Let's keep it a little on the slow side, okay?"

"Alright, agreed," he said. They laid back, curled together in a warm tangle of bodies, thoughts abuzz now that they weren't so occupied.

"If anyone I really care about asks, I probably can't lie," Maka said, "but we should be careful about this, right?"

"Yeah. We should. It's our secret."

Maka sighed. "I hate keeping you a secret, but I guess in this case it's the best option for now. For you."

Soul drummed a drowsy, imaginary tune on Maka's back. "Don't worry about that, Maka. I just have one question."

"Hmm?"

"Do I taste like metal?"

She frowned. "Huh? What? No? Why would you ask that?"

"Ah, it's an old rumor I've heard that weapons taste weird, like metal, if you kiss them." He chuckled. "Obviously, weapon couples say that's not true, but then they say you can only tell the difference if you're _not_ a weapon."

"Sounds like someone making up stories to keep regular people from kissing weapons," Maka said, yawning.

"It didn't work," Soul observed.

They fell asleep in each other's arms. The next morning, Maka came to fully appreciate the brightness of the sun through Soul's window.

 **/**

 **EPILOGUE (THREE YEARS LATER)**

 **/**

The knock came very early. Maka chose to answer the door, leaving Soul on the couch in their living room, watching her curiously. Their caller was an ethereal-looking man, tall, pale, and skinny with bizarre horizontal white stripes in his hair.

"Good evening. Ms. Albarn, I presume?"

"Y-yes," Maka said, thoughts racing as she searched his appearance for a clue to his purpose here. He bore the insignia of Lord Death, one of the mysterious Great Old Ones, and Maka wondered if she was in trouble. What was Lord Death's purpose? Order? Had she and Soul finally been pegged as violators of the natural order? Things had been getting better, so why now, of all times?

"Nice to meet you." The stranger nodded. "Is Soul Evans here as well?"

"Yeah, that's me," Soul answered, coming to Maka's side. She recognized caution in his voice. "What is it?"

The man cleared his throat. "Well. It's a bit awkward, but before we start, I should preface that rumor has it you two are involved, a relationship between a weapon and a human, and that is why I'm here."

"He's - he's my roommate," Maka said stiffly.

"I am not here to bother you," said their visitor, holding up both his hands in appeasement. "I'm here to - well, offer you a job, essentially. My father is interested in starting a project, an organization, and we are looking for ordinary, open-minded citizens like yourselves to collaborate."

Maka looked to her lover, who shrugged. "Sure, we can hear you out," Soul said. "Come in."


End file.
